For better and for worse

I was in the car tonight, listening to a sad song and it got me thinking. Why do I love this song? I find it almost painful to listen to because of the heart-wrenching emotions it evokes. But that's true of many of what I would term my favorite songs. Why am I drawn to the sad, painful songs?

Then I thought about my book. I'm currently working on a scene from the Epilogue of Emotional Devastation (tm). It's a painful scene -- two people who care about each other very much have been pushed along a path that is contrary to what their heart is asking for due to external circumstances. They're trying to find their way back. It's a painful scene to write for me. I feel each of the characters' emotions acutely. I want to make sure the reader feels them, also.

Then I thought, why am I writing that kind of book? Why aren't I writing a feel good book? A romance, with an HEA? A thriller that doesn't even involve itself in the complicated relationships between two people? Why is so much of my WIP devoted to the tangled mix of emotions -- some joyful, some painful -- of these two people who, if we're going to be completely honest with each other, exist only in my head?

I know why.

It's because that's part of what makes us who we are. We are not creatures of happiness and heartbloom -- we are creatures of happiness...and melancholy, heartache, and bittersweet emotions. Without this perfect contrast, we would have no appreciation for the moments of true joy.

That is the book I want to write. That, in fact, is why I write. I am drawn to the complex wash of colors that comprise our emotional palettes. I want to express them in ways that draw people in, mingle with their experiences and the emotions those experiences evoke and, most of all, make them think about those experiences and emotions in another way.

I love every moment of heartbreak in my book just as much as I love the moments of joy and anger and snark and fun. One doesn't seem to mean as much to me without the other.